Can I temporarily turn my 99 TJ into a 2WD convertible?

OldButStillJeeping said:

Other than a bit of side gear slop, (the bubbles), I see nothing definite. But my first thought was bad carrier bearings. If a bearing grenaded or teeth broke off... that will cause seizure.

You might have bent a tube and the housing is just junk.

Being on a real tight budget and owning a 25 year old Jeep is hard to do. Sorry, had to say it.

Dana 30 take-offs can be had cheap, or even free.

As others said, pull the inners, take apart your u-joints and run the outers only. Drain the diff fluid first, of course. You don't need to pull the front driveshaft, Just don't put in into 4 wheel JIVE. Check the sound. You might have gotten a bad - brand new unit bearing. Chinesium probably. Noise on decel is a clue.

You can piecemeal it by detective work, finding the bad bearings or part(s), but it's not that expensive in the long run to rebuild it all.

It would be best to change all the diff bearings and races, and have it done (A complete diff rebuild) by a pro. Have the pinion crush sleeve done by someone who has a little talent and a big damn torque wrench. Change your R&P ratio to what you want it to eventually be.

If it were me I would replace the whole axle and be done.

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hear said:

This is why you buy Timken bearings. If you don't, when it fails they're going to ask "did you buy a Timken" and if you say no, then all the second guessers will come in and say "you shoulda bought a Timken." On the other hand if you use a Timken, when it fails they're going to ask "did you buy a Timken" and you'll be all "yeah man, I did!" and then they'll shrug their shoulders and say "well, what'r'ya gonna do? They don't build stuff like they used to."

Because the truth is everything breaks.

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mrblaine said:

That never isn't tiresome.
It is always easy to tell who doesn't understand how things are made.

I'll make you the same fucking offer I've made others of similar ilk. Detroit Axle makes unit bearings. I have Timken late model machined down at the flange to fit our brake kits. It is expensive and time consuming as well as space intensive so I need a quality product with a low attrition rate.

If you are confident in your assertions that name brands are not important and a quality product that can be counted on to deliver based on expectations, then I'll start selling the Detroit Axle versions.

All you have to do is step up when a customer contacts me about a problem. You handle communication, you handle acquiring and sending them a new machined part, and you reimburse me for the machining costs I've lost.

For the record, we have sold about 500 with a zero defect rate and trust me, my customers cut me zero slack about anything they can construe to be covered under any warranty replacement.

Do we have a deal?

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mrblaine said:

I used a Nyloc. I would also use some red Loctite, 271 or 272.

If the washer on the back is large enough and strong enough to capture the outer half of the unit bearing, then it is working exactly the same as the stub bolt on a 2wd Cherokee beam axle. That also means it can run forever like that since you are duplicating the exact function of the current stub shaft.

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mrblaine said:

Not really. But, you can just jump up and down on the end of a breaker bar and it will be fine. Unless you're pretty special, I doubt you'll find an easy way to torque a 1" fine thread bolt up to the required torque value.
View attachment 612901

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mrblaine said:

1 pound of force 1 foot away from the pivot = 1 ft. lb.
2 pounds of force 1 foot away from the pivot = 2 ft. lbs.
2 pounds of force 2 feet away from the pivot = 4 ft. lbs.

To get 850 ft lbs, you can stand on the end of a bar that is 3.86 feet away from the pivot. 3.86 feet x 220 lbs of force = 849.2 ft lbs

Don't hurt yourself. The hard part will be the back up wrench.

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